Responsibility
by katriel1987
Summary: He broke his own rule and left them behind. Is all as it seems? Character Death.
1. Responsibility

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own them. Nope, I'm not making any money off them.

Author's Note: Tissue alert! This story contains major character death. If you don't like character deaths, skip this one. I've never really been into the whole angsty thing, but this piece practically wrote itself. This is pure unadulterated angst. Please review.

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    Doctor Daniel Jackson was not a happy man.

    After all this time, why did they have to make him come here? There were too many memories here, too many bittersweet echoes of laughter and things that could have been and hope that died a long, long time ago.

    It damn well wasn't fair.

    Of course, he knew on an intellectual level that no one had forced him to do anything; he just hadn't felt that he could refuse. _You're still hanging on to that misguided sense of responsibility, _he told himself bitterly, but he knew that deep down there was something more behind his acceptance of the task General Hammond had asked him to do.

    It had been late evening and a call from General George Hammond had been the absolute last thing Daniel expected. He had been sitting in the kitchen poring over a book on archaeology when the phone had rang.

    Now, four hours later, he was standing here in the dusty silence, standing quietly as if waiting for this house's long-dead occupant to step forward and welcome him with a smile. _Stop dreaming, Daniel,_ he ordered himself sternly. 

    Ironic, wasn't it? The same person who had tried to protect Daniel's tenacious innocence and willingness to trust had been the very one who finally extinguished it completely.

    Daniel had known nothing would ever be the same again when Sam had fallen so terribly ill on P8R-333, but he couldn't in a million years have fathomed just how much it would change all their lives. It had been a completely routine mission, until Major Sam Carter had casually mentioned that she had a headache.

    It was, in hindsight, the beginning of the end.

    Sam's decline had been more rapid than any of them could comprehend. They'd barely managed to get her back to the SGC when she flat lined, the monitors around her screaming in alarm, warning the medical personnel to take action that would never bring back SG-1's gorgeous, effervescent Major Samantha Carter.

    Daniel still remembered how Sam's face had looked in that final moment, the last glimpse he had of her as they whisked her away. Her face was sweat-soaked, strands of short blond hair sticking to her forehead. Contrary to popular belief, a person did not close his or her eyes at the moment of death; Sam's beautiful blue eyes, ringed by long lashes, were open, but empty, completely void of the vibrant personality Daniel had come to love and depend on so much.

    He remembered standing alone, hugging himself, wondering in a detached way why the temperature had just dropped fifteen degrees. He hadn't even realized he was crying until he felt the tears sliding slowly down his cheeks. Sam was gone. Nobody was going to bring her back. They hadn't even had time to contact her father, to ask him to come with a healing device.

    As horribly hard as it had been for Daniel, losing the woman he'd adopted as the big sister he never had, it was harder for Colonel Jack O'Neill.

    He hadn't cried — at least not as far as Daniel had seen. Crying wasn't Jack O'Neill's way. No, Daniel thought bitterly, he'd rather lock himself away in damning silence and waste away until there was nothing left behind those brown eyes.

    Maybe Jack had loved Sam Carter far beyond what the regulations allowed. Maybe, like Daniel, he had seen her as a close, wonderful friend. Daniel would never really know now, but whatever the case, one thing was for certain: Jack had blamed himself for the beautiful Major's death.

    "It wasn't your fault, Jack," Daniel whispered into the stillness around him, almost expecting a reply. The edge of his mouth lifted in a small, mocking half-smile at his own stupidity. He'd spoken those words so many times, too many damn times, and look what good they'd done one silver-haired, quiet, withdrawn Colonel Jack O'Neill.

    In all fairness to Jack, he had probably never even considered the possibility that Daniel would be the one to find him. He certainly wouldn't have wanted it that way. Jack O'Neill knew all too well the emotional trauma that came with discovering the dead or dying body of a loved one.

    He couldn't have known that Daniel would come over early that Tuesday morning, having finally made up his mind that the two needed to have a talk, a long, long talk. He couldn't have predicted that the young archaeologist would push open the door and find him there in the living room, his pistol still grasped in his cold stiff fingers, blood congealing in an ugly pool around him.

    Daniel would never forget Jack's eyes. Brown eyes that had turned into stone those last few months after Sam's death; brown eyes that had hidden everything until Jack's inner turmoil destroyed him. In death, those eyes had ironically enough become windows to the soul that no longer occupied the Colonel's body. Daniel still ached at the memory of the raw, almost incomprehensible pain that those eyes had revealed. Jack had been hurting beyond what Daniel could have even imagined, despite the grief he himself had endured.

    _Nevertheless, it damn well doesn't justify what he did to me._

    How could he do it? How could Jack O'Neill take that pistol and place it against his heart and pull the trigger, knowing what it was going to do to Daniel? He of all people knew what it was like to lose someone close to you. He of all people knew just how many loved ones Daniel had already lost. He of all people should have known he was destroying his closest friend.

    So why?

    Why did he do it?

    Why did he go home quietly that night, without even so much as a goodbye or a brief note? Why did he leave them no closure, no farewell? Why did he come home and step inside his house and in the complete darkness, take his own life?

    "It's been three years, damn it," Daniel muttered to himself, idly wiping the dust off a nearby table. "You'd think I'd be over it by now."

    No. No, he knew better than that. He'd never get over it. He'd never get over the pain, the betrayal, the raw agony of knowing that his best friend had taken the "easy" way out and had left him behind.

    "Damn it, Jack, what did you think you were doing?"

    He whispered it to the silence and received no response. Not that he'd really been expecting one this time — he'd pretty well established that Jack wasn't there, hadn't he? Jack wouldn't ever be there again. Jack was gone. Jack had left him. _Jack, you son of a bitch, I thought you said that nobody was ever left behind. I thought that was your rule. I thought that was your code._

    _You left us._

    The greatest betrayal, the greatest abandonment.

    _I trusted you completely, and you left me behind. Didn't you know I was already hurting from losing Sam? Did you think I'd be able to handle one loss so close on the heels of another? Or did you just not give a damn?_

_    Maybe if you'd stopped to think for just a minute, you'd still be here. Or maybe you'd be retired, in that cabin in Minnesota next to a lake with no pesky fish in it. I don't care. What's important is that maybe if you'd stopped to think, you wouldn't have abandoned me like this._

_    Did you stop to think, Jack?_

    Daniel gave a long, frustrated sigh and forced his feet to move, to carry him forward into the living room. He'd sat here with Jack many times, watching stupid movies and eating pizza and drinking a beer or two. Teal'c and Sam were usually there too. Those were some of the best times of his life. Who could have guessed it would end this way?

    He hadn't seen Teal'c in nearly two years — the Jaffa was back on Chulak now. Maybe he was trying to recruit more Jaffa to his cause, but Daniel doubted that. Much of Teal'c's enthusiasm and passion for his cause had disappeared after O'Neill's death. The big Jaffa was disillusioned. The person who had convinced him to join in the battle against the false gods, who had gained his trust so completely, had broken his own code; had left two team members behind.

    If Daniel had known that going through Jack's things would have this effect on him, he might not have been so willing to accept. Okay, deep down he had known it would hurt like crazy, but he hadn't allowed himself to realize that the familiar surroundings, the familiar smell of Jack O'Neill that still lingered despite three years of vacancy, would make him miss Jack so much that he could barely stand it.

    He hadn't let himself miss Jack much over the last few years. Mostly, he'd channeled his pain into anger — anger at Jack, for betraying him, for leaving him, for abandoning him; anger at the fates, at all gods false or real who had allowed Sam to catch an alien virus in the first place; anger at himself for being angry with Jack, and even with Sam sometimes, for dying, for beginning the end of SG-1.

    Stopping in the middle of the living room, Daniel Jackson drew in a deep breath, telling himself to cool it; telling himself that he was beyond this, that he was cynical and bitter, that he couldn't allow this to destroy him.

    Jack had died right here.

    Right here, arms out flung, that damned pistol still in his hand. Right here, in a pool of blood, in a room that smelled sticky sweet like the precious liquid that had saturated his shirt and soaked into the floor beneath him. The stain was faint now, but still there.

    Daniel shuddered.

    He needed to get this over with. Quickly. Before he lost his nerve, or worse, his composure. Before he found himself sitting against the couch and crying like the little boy he'd sworn to himself he would never be again.

    Maybe they would have gotten Sarah, Jack's ex-wife, to do this, but she was dead — she'd died in a car accident a year or so ago. Daniel hadn't heard until several months after the incident. He'd never really known Sarah, but he knew how much Jack had loved her. At the time he had bitterly thought, there goes another piece of Jack. Wonder how long before nobody remembers him?

    He swept his eyes around the room, forcing himself to think rationally, to consider what was worth keeping and what had been of value only to one Colonel Jack O'Neill, or his now deceased ex-wife. The small coffee table in the corner caught his eye, and he couldn't repress a slight shiver when he remembered how Jack had been lying right next to that table, one arm stretched toward it.

    It was a nice table, he'd always liked it, but he knew for a fact that he could never keep it for himself. Every time he looked at the thing he'd see Jack lying next to it, eyes anguished and unseeing, mouth slightly open. Maybe somebody else would take it.

    He moved it away from the wall, then stopped when he spotted something lying behind it, pushed up close against the wall. Dropping to his knees, Daniel picked it up carefully. It was Jack's pocket knife, rusted slightly now, the blade still open. It wasn't like Jack to leave an open knife lying around. Maybe he'd put it on the coffee table and it had slid down against the wall.

    Daniel was starting to get up when he caught sight of something, a scratch he thought at first, on the polished wood floor. Leaning closer, he saw that it was, in fact, a crude, shakily scratched letter. N. It was followed by other letters …

    Oh God.

    Daniel Jackson sat for what seemed an eternity without thinking, without moving. In one hand he held Jack O'Neill's pocket knife. He closed his hand over the knife, not noticing when the blade cut into his palm. Tears filled his eyes and streamed down his cheeks, and suddenly he was sobbing, his cynicism melting away.

    "I'm sorry, Jack, oh God, I'm so sorry … "

    Daniel was staring down at four words, scratched crudely and painfully, in the dark and silence by a dying man, into the floor beneath the coffee table.

    "Not me. NID. Sorry."

_Three Years Earlier_

    They had put the pistol in his hand; he could feel its cold weight against his palm, confirmation that he was still alive, at least for the moment.

    He was alone now; he knew and they knew that he was a goner. He'd never muster the strength to crawl to the telephone, and even if he did, he wouldn't survive until help came. Colonel Jack O'Neill was a dead man, not for the first time, but he was pretty sure it would be permanent this time.

    A spasm of pain ripped through his chest, causing his hand to close convulsively over the pistol. Damn, he hadn't remembered that dying hurt so much. Not that he'd put it on his top 10 list of fun things to do, but this was adding insult to injury. If he was going to die, couldn't he at least do so painlessly?

    Teal'c and Daniel would never believe that he'd killed himself. They'd dig deeper, search out the truth, make sure justice was served. Of this Jack was certain. They knew him too well, didn't they? Yeah, he'd been hurting over Carter's death, but they all had. Surely they wouldn't believe he had committed suicide.

    _Please, don't let them believe I killed myself … _

    A thought occurred to him suddenly. His pocket knife was in his left pocket; if he could only get it out, open the blade, perhaps he could leave them a final message, give them a reason to believe that he hadn't skipped out on them of his own free will.

    Left-handed he opened the knife, and with the last small reserve of strength left in his failing body he scratched words, one painful letter at a time, into the wood floor under the coffee table. With the sheer force of his will he kept himself alive, kept his hand moving; when the final letter had been formed he dropped the knife and pulled his left hand back toward himself. Now they would know, Daniel and Teal'c and the General and everybody. Knowing Teal'c and his Jaffa revenge thing, some heads would probably roll. He almost grinned at the thought.

    "Sorry, Danny," Colonel Jack O'Neill whispered into the cool air. His dark brown eyes focused on one spot on the ceiling, and he slowly exhaled the last breath he would ever take. The sudden absence of motion left the room in unbroken silence around the cooling body of a man who had not, as his teammates would someday discover, broken his own personal code after all.

*FINIS*


	2. Retribution

**Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Wish I did. Wouldn't kill 'em if I did own 'em.**

**Author's Note: This one is dedicated to Flatkatsi, who said she'd like to see Daniel and Teal'c get revenge for the events in "Responsibility". Oddly enough, this is both a prequel and a sequel to "Responsibility". It contains character death. Obviously.**

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Carl Addison rubbed the back of his neck, glancing toward the west, where the sun's last rays had painted the sky over Colorado Springs a brilliant shade of orange. It seemed fitting that this evening should be so striking, because for one resident of the beautiful city, it would be the last sunset.

The man had better notice the brilliant sky while driving home from work. He had better feast his eyes on the stunning beauty of God's creation, because it would be his last chance to do so. Carl had been hired to make sure of that.

He flexed his hands slightly, admiring the long, slender fingers, aching to feel the cold, smooth metal of a trigger against his skin. He longed for the incomparable rush as he watched his victim struggle, lungs rattling, for one last breath.

But he could wait. He had learned patience long ago; it was vital for a man in his profession. With the addition of patience, this once hot-headed young man had become the best at what he did. Carl felt the familiar heady rush of pride that always accompanied that thought.

He had worked all over the world, for presidents and kings, for rebels and guerrillas. He had assassinated political leaders, then moved on to orchestrate carefully planned "accidents" halfway across the world.

Tonight, he was working for a Senator.

* * *

The flickering turn-signal light reflected off Jack O'Neill's handsome face, giving it a faint greenish hue in the semidarkness. Tapping his fingers unconsciously against the steering wheel, the Air Force Colonel gave a faint sigh. He was unaccustomed to the silence in his truck — ordinarily he played the radio on his way home, but tonight he wasn't in the mood for music.

He had been given an impossible task: to replace someone who was irreplaceable.

Two months ago his 2IC, a brilliant astrophysicist and close friend named Samantha Carter, had died of an alien virus. The SGC's elite medical staff had been unable to determine the virus' origin or any method of treatment; fortunately, it must not have been very contagious, because no one else had caught it.

Only Sam.

Damn, but he missed her. He'd never realized just how much he would. He missed her smile, the way she laughed at his dumb jokes, the fierce look she got in her eyes when someone really made her mad … hell, he even missed her nonstop technobabble.

And now she was gone, and he had to try to find a replacement for her.

The sunset had been stunning this evening — he couldn't help but notice it on his way home from the SGC. Darkness had fallen now, and the air was chilly as he parked in front of his house, exasperated that he had forgotten, again, to turn on the porch light before he left that morning.

Walking up the sidewalk, he zipped up his jacket, then stumbled slightly in the darkness when his foot hit the bottom step. Unlocking the door, he stepped inside, wondering not for the first time what brilliant genius had decided to place the light switch completely across the room from the doorway.

Jack was halfway across the room when a sudden sharp chill ran up his spine, his subconscious screaming a belated warning. He started to turn, only to hear an all-too-familiar sound and collapse to the floor, nerve endings shrieking in pain, completely paralyzed by a single blast from a zat'nikatel.

* * *

Glancing down at the bizarre little gun in his hand, Carl Addison smiled a little. He'd been told that this 'zat' was a piece of top secret technology, and he had to admit it was quite effective, although he preferred an old-fashioned pistol any day.

The prey, a man who was in far better shape than his silver hair would seem to indicate, was unconscious for only a few seconds, but even after awareness returned he was unable to move.

Carl had read Colonel Jack O'Neill's file — including parts that were generally not available to civilians such as himself — and had come to the conclusion that this was one tough son of a gun. The hunter was almost disappointed by how easy his latest assignment had turned out to be.

Setting aside the zat gun, the assassin took O'Neill's pistol, the one he kept in a drawer at home, from his pocket. This was another nuance of the game that he loved, this irony of a man dying by his own weapon.

Flicking on a lamp, casting a dim swathe of light across the room, Carl walked quietly toward his victim. Brown eyes fixed on him, cool eyes, the eyes of a man who had faced death before. They contained a surprising amount of defiance, those eyes.

O'Neill tried valiantly to resist as Carl pulled him to a standing position, but his muscles were still paralyzed from the shock, and he succeeded only in twitching his fingers slightly.

Supporting the other man's weight, Carl carefully lifted O'Neill's hand and wrapped the limp fingers around the pistol, pointing the barrel at the Colonel's chest. Carl's own gloved hand covered his victim's, his fingers poised to apply the necessary pressure to the trigger. Everything was perfect — the angle, the promise of powder residue on the victim's hand. It would so easily pass as a suicide.

"The NID sends their regards," Carl said softly. "As does Senator Kinsey."

For an instant, dark brown eyes met soulless gray ones, and Jack O'Neill drew in a deep breath. "Go to hell," he whispered.

Carl pulled the trigger.

* * *

_Three years later_

"Teal'c."

The one word held a depth of emotion that surprised the quiet Jaffa, who had been surprised by very few things since O'Neill's death. Daniel Jackson looked terrible. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin, always fair, was ashen.

"DanielJackson," Teal'c greeted, his tone reserved. "Are you unwell?"

The archaeologist, Teal'c's former teammate, waved a dismissive hand as if to say his own health was of no concern. "You must be wondering why I contacted you after all this time," he said as the two men left the embarkation room. "Teal'c, you aren't going to believe this."

The Jaffa raised an eyebrow as if to say he would believe almost anything.

"Jack was murdered."

* * *

Harry Maybourne was a happy camper.

Despite all the less-than-virtuous things he'd done in his life, he must have _some_ good in him to deserve this kind of retirement. The planet the Tok'ra had found for him was a temperate paradise, with a few natives who were friendly but let him do his own thing.

It was Heaven. It was everything he'd ever dreamed of but never expected to get. It was —

Oh, damn.

The ship appeared out of nowhere, hovering above him for a brief moment before landing smoothly in the field next to his camp. For a terrible moment Maybourne thought he was about to come face-to-face with an angry Goa'uld; then two figures exited the ship and walked toward him.

Two familiar figures.

Damn. Double damn.

Dr. Daniel Jackson was the first to reach him. He'd changed, Maybourne realized — a lot. His blue eyes were cold and angry, and Teal'c, well — the large Jaffa looked ready to dismember the first person or object that dared look at him wrong or stand in his way.

"Dr. Jackson," Maybourne greeted, feeling almost intimidated by the two sets of icy eyes currently focused on him. "What can I do for you?"

The archaeologist and the Jaffa exchanged a look that spoke volumes. "Jack O'Neill has been murdered by the NID," Dr. Jackson said bluntly, "and you're going to help us find out who did it."

It was not a request.

Maybourne looked at the hulking, silently livid Jaffa and swallowed hard. Clearly he wasn't being given a choice. He had no idea whether any of his contacts were still good, but he didn't even want to find out what would happen if he tried to refuse.

"All right," he said, cursing inwardly at the prospect of leaving his paradise for the hell that was the American political scene.

* * *

It was a completely ordinary day for Carl Addison.

He was between assignments, gathering his thoughts and honing his focus for his next job, when the doorbell rang. Expecting a pizza delivery — supreme with mushrooms, which was obsessively the only kind of pizza he would eat — he hurried to the door and pulled it open.

"Carl Addison?" The young brown-haired man wore glasses and a smile that did not reach his frosty blue eyes.

He was holding a gun. A very strange gun. What was it called … a zat?

With that memory came flashes of the assignment on which he'd first seen the zat. He remembered a vivid sunset, brown eyes, whispered words — "Go to hell." He remembered the shot, blood spurting, leaning over to place the gun in the limp hand.

He remembered eyes, fixed on his, defiant in the face of death. Eyes that had bothered him ever since because they seemed to say that this man could be killed, but not defeated. Never defeated.

The blue-eyed man stepped into the room followed by another, a huge black man with a bizarre tattoo and raw hatred in his eyes.

"Carl Addison," the tattooed man said, his voice deceptively soft. "Do you remember a man named Jack O'Neill?"

Carl looked into brown eyes and saw death, then switched his gaze to blue eyes and saw the same thing.

The first shot from the zat hurt almost unimaginably. He felt as if his body had been set afire, and he was agonizingly aware of every muscle but completely unable to move even one.

He had only a brief glimpse of a dark face looking down at him before the second shot was fired and everything faded away into the cold blackness that would be his eternity.

Carl Addison, arguably the best assassin in the world, had made one fatal mistake. He had underestimated an alien and an archaeologist who would go to any lengths to find justice for a man who did not deserve to die.

* * *

_Epilogue_

_ Less than two weeks later, Senator Robert Kinsey mysteriously disappeared from his lavish home in Washington, D.C. There were no signs of foul play, and police were quite honestly dumbfounded by the case. The USA's best detectives could find no clues; it was as if the man had literally evaporated into thin air._

_ The Kinsey case remained forever a mystery. It was never connected to the equally bizarre disappearance of a known assassin, and certainly not to the 3-year-old "suicide" of a brown-eyed Colonel named Jack O'Neill._

FIN


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